Towards a merger of volunteer fire stations in Greater Sudbury?

This report suggests that the current distribution of fire stations in the community is not balanced, and that many stations do not have enough staff to function properly.

The report, produced by the consulting firm Operational Research in Health (ORH), believes that one of the solutions could be to consolidate certain volunteer fire stations, such as those at Vermillion Lake, Beaver Lake, Skead, Falconbridge, Val Caron, Hanmer and Copper Cliff.

Fire departments at other stations, such as Waters, Lively, Wahnapitae, Coniston, Azilda and Chelmsford, could be reorganized and relocated to a more optimal location, the report said.

When we talk about consolidation, we are talking about the closure of certain stationssays Matthew Walchuck, representative of the Christian Labor Association of Canada (CLAC), the union that represents volunteer firefighters in Greater Sudbury.

There might be operational gains, but there would also be several volunteer firefighters leaving the service.he believes.

According to the calculations of the report of the firm ORHwhich is based on the number of calls made to emergency services between 2016 and 2020, a consolidation of the volunteer fire stations would have no impact on the response time of the emergency services.

Closing these stations would also allow the City of Greater Sudbury to save money, since it would not have to invest to renew this aging infrastructure.

Recruitment and retention challenges among volunteer firefighters

Natalie Labbée, municipal councilor for Ward 7, says she is concerned about some of the report’s recommendations.

A volunteer firefighter explained to me recently that if the station in his community were to close, he would have to travel about ten minutes to get to the next one.she illustrates. This kind of scenario would hurt his response time, and he would rather leave the service than stay and be inefficient.

The Greater Sudbury Volunteer Fire Department currently has 214 members, while 350 are needed to meet the needs, according to Mr. Walchuk. The latter fears that the merger of certain barracks will worsen the labor shortage that has plagued the sector for years.

The threat of the closure of certain fire stations has been hanging over volunteer firefighters for a long timehe says. And for some, that would be the straw that would break the camel’s back.

The report points out that the merger of certain stations would partly aim to solve the chronic problems of understaffing in them.

However, Ms. Labbée believes that there are still solutions to be explored to improve recruitment and retention in these fire stations. There is a pool of potential candidates among the many young people who returned to settle in the regions during the pandemic.

A controversial case

The last plan to reorganize the fire services presented to the city council in 2017 caused an outcry in the community.

This plan, which was eventually scrapped, included closing 10 fire stations and hiring more professional firefighters, to the detriment of volunteer firefighters.

Mike Squarzolo, who chairs the Greater Sudbury Professional Firefighters Association, knows that this issue provokes strong reactions. Change is difficult for some people.

Ultimately, City Council must find a way to deal with the issue of infrastructure, which is in poor condition, while dealing with changing demographics and the need to balance the City’s finances.he believes.

According to Mr. Squarzolo, the issue of aging barracks is becoming more and more pressing. This is a health and safety issue for staff.

He explains that some of these buildings are over fifty years old, and some of them have mold in the walls.

There are barracks that are not equipped for our contemporary workforcehe said. Some of them do not have spaces allocated to women who have to change after a shift.

Greater Sudbury City Council to consider report recommendations at next meeting on December 13